The music made my soul shiver, and I clamped down on the connection that stretched back to Alex. I didn’t want to distract them in the fight they were currently in, especially since Alex wasn’t supposed to be fighting—only the little one needed to level.

  The Elder played the instrument with ease, their many fingers dancing along the wooden tube. Each note felt like being stabbed, but with something warm and comforting. Yet, the ice-cold spots inside didn’t want that heat.

  I actively disliked it.

  My feet wanted to move, but I didn’t dare draw attention to my discomfort.

  Children took turns in the middle of the courtyard dancing. Some of the very young still crawled on four legs, while others already stood tall on two. A few of the older few even had practice blades that danced as they took their turns.

  Everyone glanced in my direction as the little one on four legs crawled to the sidelines.

  It was my turn.

  Everyone paused as the music played, waiting for me to step into the center of the stone to let the music take me.

  Sweat dripped down the back of my neck, and I couldn’t move.

  A flash of green next to me caused me to jerk as Lenna stepped into the center. A giggle escaped her as she spun in strange circles, and her feet moved in a different pattern than everyone else had.

  The Elder picked up the tempo as she danced. Strange silver light flickered around her, drawing the children closer, but not so close that they crossed the line on the stones.

  Broken impressions of footprints remained on the dark stones, each like silver grains of sand sticking somewhere wet.

  My eyes couldn’t look away from the pattern they made. I didn’t even realize she spun closer to me until her hands connected with mine, and I found myself pulled into the center of the circle.

  Lenna danced to the edge and crossed out, leaving me there, alone, to dance.

  I couldn’t resist spinning to this new song with this new tempo. My blades appeared in all four of my hands, arcing out like a gust of wind. Each moved to the beat inside my soul.

  The edges of the blades shimmered as I danced, suddenly turning translucent. Energy pulled from inside me and into the blades, almost making me stumble. More and more energy drained from me, crossing the line of what I could easily handle.

  [You have learned the skill Singing Soul Blade. Singing Soul Blade: You transform your blade into an extension of your very spirit. A soft ethereal hum emanates from your blades, a melody heard not just with the ears but deep within the heart. You can bypass physical defenses. You already have ten skills, would you like to merge it into Dance of Thorns?]

  No, I would not. I quickly merged Hardened Defense into my body skill, Reactive Body.

  [You have merged Hardened Defense into Reactive Body: Reactive Body - II. Your body anticipates and reacts to incoming threats by evading and fortifying itself at the precise point of impact. You can slightly increase the density by compacting your size.]

  [You have learned the skill Singing Soul Blade.]

  As soon as the skill added itself to my stat sheet, I stumbled out of the circle. Green arms reached out to me as my swords hit the stones.

  The Elder directed the children to take a break as Lenna helped me to the ground. The bright purple sky flickered overhead as I tried to figure out what I had just learned how to do.

  “You reach beyond your rank, young one,” whispered the Elder, patting my shoulder. “You will go far.”

  ###

  The hunter hesitated, but shook his head back and forth. “You all should head to the academy. Much is moving within the labyrinth, and you must always keep stepping forward or you might get sucked into the sand.”

  Strange jumped at the comment and rushed back toward us.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just that.” He lifted a hammer out of nowhere, slamming it down on the metal, sending sparks everywhere. “Keep moving. The more you linger, the more you want to. The academy should be safe for learning, but keep learning.”

  This time the warning was clear. Part of me couldn’t help but wonder where the hunter actually came from. He didn’t feel like a dungeon beast at all.

  Yet, I didn’t linger, and turned toward the door.

  “Let’s go and find the others. Hopefully they haven’t gotten into much trouble.”

  Stepping outside the room took us back to the courtyard where we appeared in the dungeon near the western side. I went to step forward and cross it, but the hair rose on the back of my neck.

  Light shimmered in the center, and several Azura folk appeared. Each wore armor, had weapons, and immediately marched toward one of the archways that hadn’t been there before. All five of them were around level 90, but that's all I got as they dashed away.

  “Things must be picking up out there…” I said as I scooted across the edges of the courtyard, noticing the path that tightly wound along the inside of the wall heading to the academy area.

  Strange followed along, staying close to my feet. He flickered in and out of sight within my shadows.

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  Dengu hurried ahead of us, padding toward the archway before vanishing through the opening.

  I didn’t rush Strange, but he was small and a little slower than my normal pace, so it was hard. Still, we made it pretty quickly through the gap. I paused after we stepped through, picking him up after seeing all of the Azura folk in the hallway.

  Children surrounded Dengu, who practically purred as several little kids petted him. They cooed over him as others stood back watching him warily. Dengu ignored the wary ones and let the others have fun touching his scales.

  One approached and touched his metal talon with their eyes wide.

  “Warrior!” The voice came out a little high pitched, but happy.

  Dengu nodded his head.

  I stepped closer, tucking Strange into his sling. “He was wounded protecting his pack, his family.”

  The kids all gasped together and nodded to one another. The older teenagers stepped a little closer at my voice. A few of them were even taller than I was.

  One of the little kids noticed Strange, who immediately tucked himself into the cloth and then fucking vanished in the darkness.

  I froze, trying to figure out why his weight was gone. The connection was still there, but he physically wasn’t in the sling anymore.

  His skill blew my mind. We really needed to try fighting together again as soon as possible. Still, first we had to find the others. Priorities, I reminded myself.

  The connection for Kabi flickered in the back of my mind as I focused on it. The crystals were there as well, but the aura link felt stronger. As soon as I touched it, concern and frustration funneled in my direction.

  I nodded at Dengu, who stayed in the center of the group, and I headed toward Kabi.

  The academy was set up as different courtyards, all branching off a center hallway open to the sky and lined with massive trees. Not as massive as those in the forest, but old oaks with trunks that I couldn’t reach around. Two stood at each opening to the courtyards, providing shade for the stone hallway.

  The hallway curved toward the right like it was part of a massive circle. That meant I couldn’t see the end, if there even was one.

  Kabi’s connection pulled from my left, several openings down.

  Strange didn’t reappear in my sling, but did somehow move. The connection with him now rested near my feet, still hidden in the shadows. My focus switched to Kabi and trying to figure out where he was, though as we approached one of the bigger openings on our left, it wasn’t hard to find him.

  A blacksmith's forge sat in the back of this courtyard, with Kabi talking to an older woman. They both sat on the cobblestone floor, and she showed him something with a sword.

  “He is struggling,” whispered Lenna as she stepped out of the shadows of the tree. “He wants one thing, but his path says he should be something else.”

  “That can be hard…” Lenna’s comment reminded me I needed to allocate my free stats, but I held off for now. I wanted to see what the academy had first. “What do you think he should do?”

  “Whatever will make him happy,” came quickly from her lips. Yet, her eyebrows were really close together, like she was concerned.

  Strange popped out of the shadows at my feet and launched himself across the clearing, heading right for the forge.

  “Well, that little guy loves heat,” I said with a smirk. “Not sure how that’s going to help his path or a profession. He also loves fetch quests - we ended up doing two of them, which wasn’t bad. The rewards rocked.”

  “Strange is a little, well, strange,” said Lenna with a concerned look on her face. “But the stronger you both bond, the better.”

  “I wanted to ask you about that. Dengu said we need to grow our bond.”

  Lenna nodded, with her eyes wide. “Yes. The more you live, travel, and fight together, the better. It helps the two of you sync up. When I fight with Dengu, we just know what to do to help one another.”

  “Once we wrap up here, we totally need to get some actual fighting in and kill the floor boss.”

  “About that…”

  “What?”

  “Did you forget it's level 100? We have some leveling we’ll need to do.”

  I glanced at Kabi, then Lenna.

  [Kabi, Swordwarrior, Azurafolk - Forestdweller, Level 96, Friend.]

  [Lenna de La Dengu, Pathfinder, Arcane Arrow, Level 68, Friend.]

  “Dengu’s behind,” I muttered, ignoring Lenna’s level.

  “I know, and I know he feels bad about it. It took him longer to rank up than he wanted since he slowed down for me, before everything went sideways.” She glanced over at Kabi. “I’m going to go check out a few of the other Professors. I think there is something here I need to learn, then we need to do some leveling, as I said.”

  Lenna headed down the pathway, and I focused on Kabi and with Strange.

  Strange stared into the glowing coals a moment before leaping away and heading toward the Elder that Kabi still spoke with. He studied them both as he watched the Elder’s hands move along the sword with a stone.

  Kabi suddenly glanced up at me with a frown. “I’m going to be a while, if you guys want to head to the first section.”

  “I’ll let you know when we leave the academy.”

  Strange chirped at him, then scurried across the stone to join me as I pulled away from the sight.

  My next stop was to find someone who used runes. Not that I’d learn how, but there wasn’t anyone with crystal singing abilities here. Three courtyards down I found what I wanted, after passing one with someone giving a lecture, and another about I think gardening.

  I found a courtyard with a younger person painting runes on children's feet before they dashed out of the courtyard, moving much faster than before.

  [Lorniee, Runic Painter, Level 289, Predator, Unknown.]

  I paused, noticing her level.

  Rank three. Woah.

  “Welcome to my area,” she said, glancing down at me. Her bright brown eyes studied me and Strange. “Ah, you have a young one. Does he want a speed rune to check out all of the courtyards before deciding which one to stay in for a while?”

  “Yes!” Strange chirped and leaped out of my sling without waiting for me. “Fast!”

  “He likes traveling fast.”

  “Maybe he is a courier then?” Her head tilted to one side as she lifted him up in one hand to paint. Another two hands dipped the paint brushes in a small pot of ink and drew a tiny rune on the side of his foot, then the other. Both runes glowed for a moment, then he took off racing, faster than I’d anticipated, down the courtyard.

  “Courier, like a messenger?” I asked.

  “It's a valid profession, and for someone so fast, probably even a good one.”

  “He does like fetch quests…” I mumbled, feeling the bond between us stretch as he took off down the hallway out of sight. “Are all of the Azura folks' children here?”

  “Most,” she said, sounding more serious and suddenly older than she appeared. “They can’t be harmed in the academy, and the stream outside is a good place for them to level nice and slow.”

  “I thought you had to be level 50 for the academy?”

  “You do, but most of the smallest children are capped at certain points to make sure they don’t injure themselves.”

  “Caps? Oh,” My eyes grew wide thinking of the Sanctuary.

  “Yes, at level ten and then again every ten levels. They can’t learn a profession while here, but they can learn history, languages, and math. I don’t think beasts are capped like that.”

  “Not at all, we just did a speed run of, I think, twenty levels.” I chuckled, thinking of my own growth and how quickly I went from zero to where I currently stood.

  “That’s fast and dangerous.” Her eyes widened slightly. “Growing too quickly can weaken your base, but your path is your own. What brings you here, since you already have a profession?”

  “I know how to use crystals, which are similar to this world's runes. I hoped I could learn from you more about how the energy of the elements works.”

  This time she smiled.

  “Now, that’s an intelligent question.”